


blue neighbourhood, neighbourhood blue

by snsk



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Angst, Canon Divergent, F/M, Fluff, M/M, Romance, cabeswater is the blue neighbourhood in this scenario, childhood friendship thingies, gansey is still looking for dead kings!, let's just say an AU with all the main canon characteristics, like ronan is still the greywaren!, mentions of abuse so please be careful i have kept it vague but still, noah still does not have a POV and niall is still really dead!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-20
Updated: 2015-10-20
Packaged: 2018-04-27 05:50:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 6,845
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5036248
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/snsk/pseuds/snsk
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em> Ronan at thirteen, handing Adam apples sweeter than any Earth-grown. </em>
</p><p>or, a loosely-based remix of troye sivan's blue neighbourhood video trilogy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. part one: ronan + aurora

_May 2003 - Summer_

"And where exactly is it that you think you're going?" Aurora asks her second son, who is halfway through his flight out the door, out into the cold white blanket of the afternoon.

Ronan pauses in the hallway. Slowly, guiltily, he turns around to face her.

"Yeah," Aurora says. She dangles a Spiderman scarf in one hand, his mittens in the other. "Yeah, forget something, did you?"

Ronan trudges slowly back towards her. "No?"

"Mhm," she says, winding it around his neck. "Next time I catch you without this in the cold, you aren't going out at all, young man."

"Yes, Mom."

"Back before dark."

"Okay, Mom."

He's fidgeting, shifting his weight from one foot to the other. She pulls on his left mitten, kisses the top of his head. "Tell Adam he's welcome for dinner."

"Yeah, Mom!" he shouts back, already halfway across their front lawn.

 

Outside, the snow falls, thick and fast, and Ronan runs for the pier like his life depends on it. Perhaps it does; Adam's not allowed to stay out long, and Ronan needs to see this: his first, fierce joy at the snowflakes drifting down like bright, white stars, his open-mouthed awe as he tries to taste them on his tongue. Ronan runs, half-afraid he might miss Adam, even if he is fifteen minutes earlier than promised. Ronan reaches the pier, and Adam's already there, swinging his legs, face upturned. He is wearing an oversized beanie and what looks like an ancient, moth-eaten black parka, and there it is, that quiet burning delight Ronan's lungs feel like they ran a half marathon for: Adam is smiling, Adam looks very, very happy.

"I told you I'd make it snow!" he gasps out, when Adam is in earshot. He staggers the last few steps towards the end of the pier, drops down beside him. "You didn't believe me," and it's hard to sound smug when you're out of breath and your chest is on fire, but Ronan manages it.

"You made it snow," Adam allows, smiling wondrously. "And I always believed you! I just, you know, needed proof."

Ronan scoffs. "Doubting Thomas," he says, like he hears his dad say when Declan sniffs and says something is ridiculous, it's impossible.

But it's hard to pick a fight with Adam when he reaches out with his hand almost curled into a fist - just one finger, his forefinger, outstretched, pointing out into the lake of frozen ice. The tiny snowflake settles into his skin, melts like the magical, dreamt-up matter it is. Adam had said, yesterday: I've never seen a proper winter, and Ronan had been shocked, shocked and flooded with memories of the dozens of times his dad had brought them to Paris, to Stockholm, to Venice, to see snow falling in the most beautiful cities in the world, or had simply taken them to the orchard, said: Look, boys, today it's winter. Snow falling on apples and oranges and impossible fruit no one knew existed, much less knew the name of.

That had been yesterday. Today, in the middle of a hazy May in the sleepy blue-skied neighbourhood town of Cabeswater, Virginia, which last night had predicted humidity with a small chance of a slight drizzle, Ronan had woken up and looked out the window, and it had been snowing, very steadily and convincingly, right in the face of said weather forecast. Today, Ronan watches Adam marvel at the snowflakes, the solid lake, the fact that school is cancelled until who-knows-when because of what the radio says are miraculous developments in weather, and thinks: well, it's really not a big deal, but if it makes Adam happy, then.

 

Back at the Lynch residence, Aurora takes Matthew out to make a snowman, and while they are digging around for the twigs which will become his arms, Mrs Garcia peers over the hedge and says: "Aurora, dear!"

"Hello, Lauren," Aurora says, straightening up. "Oh, not in your mouth, darling," she adds to Matthew, who stares up at her in indignant confusion, and promptly resumes biting at the end of the stick once she turns her attention back to the hedge.

"Amazing, isn't it?" Mrs Garcia says, indicating the snowman, the weather, the world in general.

Aurora, who is married to Niall Lynch, a man who is not so much amazing as impossibly unfeasible and inconceivably indefinable, shakes her head and makes awed, tch-ing noises.

"Cabeswater, which hasn't had a proper winter since--" Mrs Garcia shakes her head, spreads her arms. "Oh, just sludge and frost, for as long as I can remember! And today, in the middle of summer, a winter wonderland honest-to-God out of a movie, dear. It's just a miracle." 

She shakes her head some more. Aurora, who has known nothing but miracles from the day she was created, wisely holds her tongue.

"Beautiful," Lauren Garcia concludes. 

"It really is," Aurora agrees, and that is true.


	2. part two: gansey

_November 2014 - Autumn_

Gansey's been at this school three months now, and he can therefore conclude two things, all hypotheses, variables and facts considered:

One, Blue Sargent is most probably his true love and soulmate. But that's okay, because Gansey is about eight three point two six percent sure she likes him too.

Two, for him and her to be sure about that remaining sixteen point seven four percent, Gansey has to know where he stands with Adam Parrish, Noah Czerny, and Ronan Lynch.

Gansey knows where he stands with Adam Parrish. Gansey's car had broken down on the side of the road on the fourth day of school and three people had turned down his outstretched arm (and pleading expression, okay, alright). When he'd seen the bicycle coming towards him, he hadn't really expected it to be much help, but he'd waved a half-hearted hand anyway.

Adam, a dusty-haired, long-limbed vision and savior, had leaned his bike on the fence and asked: "Do you want me to fix it? I know a little about cars."

"No," Gansey had said, startled. Of course he didn't. What manners would he have had if he'd let this polite stranger fix his car while he laid back in the sun? Really. His parents would have been appalled at the very idea. "I’d like you to show me how to fix it myself, if you could?"

Adam Parrish had looked startled at this. Gansey had wondered whether he really appeared like that much of an entitled snob. But before he could reflect on this much further, Adam had said, "Okay," and it had been simple as that, and by the time they'd reached the school Gansey had known that Adam Parrish was Adam Parrish and he had lived down Antietam Lane all his life, and most of his classes were APs but he'd introduce Gansey to Blue, who was in Gansey's Spanish class at least, Adam was sure. By the time they reached the school Adam had known Glendower was a dead Welsh king and Gansey was going to find him, and that Mrs Gansey had insisted that her son attend a public high school this year, and that she was going to leave Washington for less backstabby, political waters also this year and had uprooted her family halfway across the state to make this goal achievable.

Glendower and Mrs Gansey: not things Gansey normally discussed with people within fifteen minutes of meeting them for the first time, or with people in general, but it was easy, it was like Adam was always meant to know.

So, apparently, was Blue Sargent: in the courtyard, as the leaves crunched underfoot in the most familiar sound of fresh autumn, Adam had said: "Blue, Richard Campbell Gansey III. Gansey, Blue Sargent." He had quirked a smile at Blue, who'd wrinkled her nose at the sound of Gansey's name. 

"Be nice," he'd said, before she could say anything.

"I was planning to be, Adam, actually," Blue had sniffed. She had been wearing a coat made for winter, or a Christian play: a wildly coloured affair worthy of Joseph. "You'll be surprised at this, but I am not a badly-trained dog."

"No-one would ever accuse you of being a badly-trained anything, Blue," Adam had said patiently. "In any case, this is Gansey."

Gansey, who had more or less figured out that he was in love with this patchworked, disdainful creature who smelled of wildflowers in summer, had remembered his manners. "Hello." He added, "I like your coat."

Blue had peered at him suspiciously, trying to ascertain whether or not he was taking the piss. "So do I," she'd agreed, finally. 

Adam had quirked another grin into the expanse of new autumny sky, and that had been that, then.

 

So: three months, and Blue says Ronan Lynch hasn't always been this way, and Blue, of all people, would know.

Ronan sneers at Blue when she mock-salutes him in the hallways, and Ronan doesn't seem to have any friends apart from quiet, barely-there Noah Czerny, but three and a half weeks into Cabeswater, Blue had called Gansey to tell him she might not be able to make it for the algebra homework session they'd had planned for the evening, Maura's car's broken down, hopefully it's the carburetor and not the engine. 

Gansey'd been grabbing his keys - "Where are you?" - when she'd said, "It's fine, it's fine. Adam's on his way over to Mom. Ronan's giving me a ride."

"Ronan as in--" he'd paused, because it hadn't seemed feasible. "Ronan Lynch?"

"The one and only, Dick Gansey," Ronan, apparently as in Ronan Lynch, had drawled from Blue's end, with special emphasis on the Dick part of his sentence.

"Don't be a fucking asshole," Blue'd said cheerfully, and then, to Gansey, "I don't know any other Ronans. I wish I did. Anyway. If it's the carburetor, catch you later, and if it's the engine, I'll see you tomorrow, alright?"

"Bye, Dick," Ronan had called.

"Shut up, Ronan," Blue had said, then softer, "Bye, Gansey," which had had Gansey smiling rather more than he felt prepared to ever admit.

It hadn't been the engine, and Blue had come over in the afternoon as planned, and Gansey had learned about differential equations but also the way Blue looked, lying on her stomach peering at his notes, and the way her laugh lilted, despairing of his math.

 

But. Anyway. So: "Bitter," Blue says reflectively, leaning her head back against the Pig's headrest. The Pig molds itself around her like she was always meant for its front passenger seat. "I suppose that's the word. He's always been - well, Ronan, but he wasn't always bitter."

Gansey has a silent internal struggle, years of his mother's voice cautioning: Tact, darling, in his head. In the end, though his curiosity, what makes Gansey so very Gansey, wins out, and he asks: "So what happened?"

"Nice try," Blue says, pauses. "Not my story to tell," she adds definitively. "If you wanna know, it's going to come from them. Him."

Then she turns the volume knob up and enquires, "What do you think of this new post-apocalyptic Muse sound?" so Gansey knows that particular conversation is over for now.

 

All in all, he likes Cabeswater. He likes the high school more than he'd thought he would, having been privately educated all his life, and having had his expectations tempered by his mother sounding immensely apologetic when she'd said he had to go to a public school. He likes not having to put on a face every morning, necessary in a school where you were weird if your iPod wasn't diamond-cut. He likes the Helen in this town, not as sharp-edged and toxic as the Helen in a school and city full of poisonous friends, and the Richard Gansey II, with more time on his hands for his garden and his model aeroplanes. He likes having friends he can talk dead Welsh kings with and it is okay because they live in a house full of psychics or a neighbourhood which experienced intensely strange weather for years. He likes going to the garage after school, the ease of talking to Adam while Adam half-listens, working on a car. He likes Blue. He really likes Blue.

The Blue in question is on the floor of 300 Fox Way, leaning against her sofa, looking over his Spanish, and looking just as confused as Gansey. This is something neither of them excel at: languages, the twisting capabilities of their vowels and sounds. She circles a phrase in purple ink and looks up to ask Gansey a question, when they hear a car pull up in the driveway in an aggressive exclamation mark.

"Maggot, you better be ready," Ronan Lynch advises her, striding into the living room with a black bird on his shoulder and a darker than black jacket over a white tank top. "If it turns out I'm early--" he pronounces this last word with even more disdain than the rest "--I will leave and come back in three fucking hours."

"Language," Maura admonishes from the kitchen. "Come and have some orange slices, Ronan."

"Okay," Ronan says. But he sees Gansey. He raises an eyebrow at Blue.

"Oh, yeah," Blue says. "Gansey's coming with us."

"I am?" Gansey asks, at the same time Ronan says: "He is, is he?"

Gansey bristles at Ronan's tone, because hey, he certainly isn't going to barge in where he's not wanted. "Listen, if I'm going to be a nuisance--"

"You're not," Blue says, quelling the both of them with one glance. "If Ronan didn't want you around, he would've said by now. Very loudly and decisively. Also, he's curious about you, even if he won't say. So I'm getting my jacket, and then we're all going to Nino's." 

She brushes past Ronan, who glares at her. She flips him off and disappears into the back. Gansey is beginning to recognize this as what passes for affection for them. In the kitchen, Maura says: "Give Gansey and Ronan an orange slice, and can you bring me some of that amazing teriyaki chicken they do?"

"Well," Ronan says, "Let's go, then. I left Noah in the car, and I'm not sure I remembered to crack open a window."

Gansey isn't sure whether he's joking. He closes his books, anyway, and straightens up. "Ow, shit," he says. "Dead leg, dead leg."

"Can I call you Dick?" Ronan wants to know.

"I think you'd mean it, so no," Gansey says, following him out the door. "Is that a raven?"

"Chainsaw," Ronan says, which makes no sense until Gansey realizes it's the raven's name. "Chainsaw, this is Dick. Dick, Chainsaw."

"A terrible image," Gansey reflects, which makes Ronan seem to almost crack a smile. Chainsaw squawks at him in what Gansey assumes is greeting and takes off in a flurry of inky wings.

"Impatient!" Ronan calls after her. "She'll meet us there," he tells Gansey.

Gansey, who has a great many questions about this, is distracted by Noah Czerny sitting against the tyre of what Gansey presumes is Ronan's car, a sleek older black BMW. He waves at them cheerfully.

"I guess I forgot the window," Ronan observes.

"I'm here, I'm here," Blue announces, running out. "Have you guys not killed each other yet? A miracle. Hey, Noah!" She lets him pet her hair fondly. Gansey wonders if he should be feeling jealous about this. He doesn't.

"Now that we're done with this tearjerker of a reunion," Ronan says, jerking open the driver's door, "can we go before we're served the soggiest fries?"

 

It turns out to be a nice night; the fries aren't soggy and the company isn't terrible, and Gansey asks questions about Ronan's raven and Ronan finally deigns to call him Gansey, and Blue knocks her leg against Gansey's under the table and Noah builds a moat out of Gansey's mashed potatoes. And that is how, ostensibly, he becomes sort of? maybe? friends with Ronan Lynch, even though he is not entirely sure any sort of association with Ronan Lynch can be considered friendly.

Gansey's not sure whether he wants to tell him about Glendower, though; Ronan's an asshole but Gansey doesn't know whether he's that kind of asshole, and if he is that kind of asshole Gansey would prefer to delay the truth for as long as possible.

"He's not," Adam says, from underneath the hood of the car he's working on. He says it in a way that makes Gansey think he hadn't really meant to.

"Hmm?" Gansey says, because he hadn't even known Adam knew Ronan's last name: Adam was single-minded, focused on getting out of Cabeswater and into Harvard; he was taking APs in almost everything, and when he wasn't studying he was working to pay his way to further his education. Meanwhile, Ronan had brought a Physics folder to Biology today, and spent most of the lesson correcting and making rude comments on Gansey's Spanish homework.

"He's not," the hood of the Mitsubishi repeats, but slightly louder. "I mean-- he tries to be. Really hard. But he's not that kind of asshole. You'd be surprised."

"Oh," Gansey says. "Were-- are you friends? You never mentioned."

"Childhood friends." The hood sounds very casual. "We drifted apart."

For once, Mrs Gansey's years of training win out over Gansey's indomitable curiosity. All he says is: "Oh," and "okay, then," and continues on with an anecdote about a library assistant and ley lines, and the sleek silver shine of the Mitsubishi looks relieved.

 

Of course, five hours later, he asks Blue: "So Ronan and Adam used to be friends?" 

He can actually hear Blue narrow a glance at him.

"Who told you that?"

"Adam."

She considers this. 

"That's all he said," he adds.

Blue sighs. "They used to be friends," she says. "From even before I met either of them. And then they had a... disagreement. They don't talk at all now."

Gansey opens his mouth, but Blue beats him to the punch.

"That's all you get," she informs him. "Did you know my birthday's coming up, Richard Gansey the Third?"

Gansey does indeed know this. He's got a vaguely formulated plan for that, two pretty much confirmed conclusions, and a dead king to discover. He's only got to put his own face on in the morning. All in all, things are looking pretty good.


	3. part three: blue

_November - Autumn_

Blue does know, in fact, that Gansey has a plan for her birthday. He's not being terribly subtle about it - he'd taken an inadvertent nap during an Algebra homework session the other day, and there'd been an edge of a crumpled receipt showing in his pocket that she'd slid out sneakily. He'd bought a packet of balloons. Also, streamers.

She'd shaken her head. As a child she hadn't even liked the idea of birthday parties; by eight she'd forbidden Maura to do anything but brownies and presents. But the receipt had seemed a terribly sweet thing. She's growing soft, probably. She can't find it in herself to mind.

Gansey has debate club after school next Monday - because of course he's already president of the debate club despite having been at this school for all of three months - so she's hanging out with Adam in the garage. She can't quite remember the last time she's been to his house. Adam doesn't like her being there, and she's relieved that she doesn't have to be there. She wishes Adam didn't, either, but they've had this argument a few dozen times, reached a stalemate over and over.

It's senior year, anyway, and in a matter of months it'll be Harvard for him. 

Blue will miss him. Blue misses him already. It's like he's already there, sometimes: he's more reserved now, holds his distance; has been broadening that distance, ever since... Well. Harvard will be better for him, maybe. Some actual physical distance. Cabeswater is all she's known, all she and Adam have ever known, but it's hard to avoid things in this town, like places. Like people.

"He hasn't invited me, anyway," Adam says, amused-sounding, and Blue is abruptly jerked out of her thoughts, remembers they were talking about the not-so-surprise party. She looks over at Adam. He has dirt on his chin, or oil, or some unidentifiable fluid cars emit when they're throwing tantrums. She uses her sleeve (lacy, today, dark purple lace and a bold print skirt) to wipe it away, and he makes the face Blue makes when Maura absent-mindedly tries to smooth down her bangs. 

"Maybe he thinks you're competition," Blue says seriously. "Maybe this is his chance to steal me from you."

Adam huffs a laugh. "I haven't been competition for ages," he says. He makes a face, like he's considering it. "Let's be real, though: ever."

Blue's silently surprised at this sudden truth. They usually avoid anything near the Subject at all costs. But since this is the vein it's taking, she says: "He'll-" they both know she isn't talking about Gansey "probably be coming, too. Gansey doesn't know any better. Or, more likely, he does know, and he's taking it upon himself to investigate it himself. Or fix it. He likes you both."

"This sort of behaviour from any other person," Adam says, "would be deemed extremely interfering. Even, say, nosy."

They both know it isn't true. With Gansey, it just seems dreadfully curious and earnest and other fine boy scoutish, kingly things.

"Will you come?" Blue asks.

"I'll come to your birthday party, Blue." Adam rubs at his chin, where she'd rubbed off the dirt, with his thumb. He levels her a half-smile. "I'm not that awful a friend. I'm also a big boy, in case you hadn't heard. Three months bigger than you, in fact."

Blue says, because she should have said it before, because she's going to say it again, over and over, in the coming months, "I'm going to miss you very much, Adam Parrish."

"I'm not going off for ages yet," Adam tells her. He's good at that, neatly and deliberately sidestepping potentially messy emotions.

"This is the first in a line of many declarations as such," Blue says, "so you get it through your thick skull." 

They sit on the step and watch the cars go by on the dusty road until Adam has to go back to work.

 

"I feel like you like Gansey more than I like Gansey," Blue observes, watching Maura prepare pineapple slices for his arrival.

"That would be weird and creepy," Maura says. "No, I'm pretty sure I don't like Gansey as much as you like Gansey."

"Not the way I like Gansey, yeah, but probably more."

"Well." Maura offers her a slice of pineapple. "He's a good kid."

"You approve?" 

"Do you need my approval?" 

Blue suspects that Maura feels even more out of depth having this conversation than Blue finds it weird. "It'd be nice, I think."

Maura uses the knife as a gavel, smiles at her daughter. She repeats, "He's a good kid."

"Good to know," Blue says, but feels oddly relieved. She rolls her tongue around the sweet citrous tang.

 

Ronan has only one class with Adam: AP Spanish. It's always the last class on Thursday, and it always leaves Ronan in an even worse mood than usual: snappy and bitter and lashing and hurt. And no matter how many other classes he misses, he never misses it. Not even on this particular Thursday, which also happens to be Niall Lynch's birthday, which is making Ronan even more nastily unhappy, as Niall Lynch has been dead for two years now.

Blue climbs into the car and Ronan starts up the engine without a word. Noah, in the back seat, shrugs at her grimly in greeting. For once, the stereo's not blaring Swedish electronica, and the absence of that furious sound makes the car even louder. There are a bunch of flowers beside Noah a shade of red that doesn't exist in this world.

They reach the graveyard as the wind starts up, wildly whipping at their clothes as they get out of the car. For a moment, Blue wonders if it's Ronan. The weather in Cabeswater might have stopped erratically producing miracles for a year, but it doesn't mean it might not still unconsciously harken to his moods.

Ronan stalks out of the car, and Noah brings the flowers out. They follow him to the gravestone and he lays them down. 

He doesn't come to the graveyard on the anniversary of the death. He and Aurora and Matthew and even Declan spend the day at the Lynch residence. She'd asked Noah once. Noah had said something vague about orchards.

Niall Lynch's death hadn't made Ronan bitter. It'd hardened him, given him spikes and a shaved head, but it hadn't embittered him. That had been the death of another beloved thing.

Ronan lifts his head. The wind has calmed down into a breeze, which lifts and swirls and settles a few petals of those impossibly-coloured flowers all around the gravestone. Two years, and grass has grown all around its already weathered edges. Ronan looks calmer now. Edges not any less softer, but calmer.

He turns up the music on the way back, and Noah yells to be heard: "Gansey invited us to your surprise party."

"Oh," Blue shouts back, and, "you coming?" Noah nods his of course. "Ronan?" 

Ronan says, "Yes," because he never backs down from a challenge, and for him, that is what the party will essentially be. Blue tries to think of something to say that will lessen that challenge in his eyes. She comes up pretty much empty.

"It's my birthday," she says instead. "Just--" 

Swedish electronica drowns out whatever she'd been attempting. She gives up and lets the music pulse through her veins. She loves the way it reverberates and she can feel nothing else. In that way, she is very much like Ronan, impossible in the way no-one's looking.

 

Adam takes her out on Sunday morning in his battered beloved Hondayota; Blue sees through this in a second, of course, but lets him drive her around the neighbourhood, point out all the places they used to roam as kids, wonder how they hadn't met sooner, Cabeswater being as small as it is. There are five finger-shaped yellowing bruises on his wrist. They go to the playground and Blue gets her jeans muddy on the old slide. On the rusted squeaking swing, Adam tips his head up to the sky, tells it: "I'll miss you too." 

Blue is quiet. Blue pushes him towards the clouds.

Gansey is waiting outside 300 Fox Way when they pull up into the driveway. "Surprise," Adam says, dry. 

"Adam, I had no idea," Blue tells him. She watches him offer her a small smile, then his face change as Maura, Orla, Carla and Penelope come out through the door, followed by Noah and Ronan. She wants to say something to comfort, to assure, but he's already out of the car, and Gansey is pulling her door open, and she is distracted.

"Hi, Jane," Gansey greets her. "Happy birthday! Are you surprised? You don't look very surprised." 

He's carrying a bright blue balloon and wearing a glittery party hat. He's made everyone wear one, too, even Adam who's produced one from nowhere and is adjusting it onto his head. 

Blue has never liked the idea of birthday parties, especially eighteenth-year ones. Blue is terribly charmed.


	4. part four: adam

_November - Autumn_

Blue thinks it's hard to avoid people in Cabeswater. She's told Adam this. Adam knows it isn't. If you're dedicated enough to making it happen, the most you see the one person who used to know you better than you know yourself is two Spanish classes per week. Tuesday and Friday. Two hours out of the dozens you used to spend living inside each other's skin.

Of course, if you make friends with people like Richard Gansey The Third, those two hours stretch into a birthday party with no end in sight. Penelope passes over a party hat. Adam takes it, snags on Ronan's gaze. It's hard and expressionless, or Adam's forgotten how to read this particular language. Adam looks away. 

They start filing into the house, Gansey and Maura chattering excitedly away to Blue, who looks not so much overwhelmed as exasperatedly amused. Ronan turns and goes in when Matthew asks him a question, and oh, Matthew's here, apparently. They must have just left from church.

Adam is left outside with Noah, who'd lingered, which is somewhat of a surprise. Adam's never really talked all that much with Noah. He transferred to their high school around the time Shit Went Down, and he'd somehow become someone Ronan tolerated enough to keep around - Adam feels bad for phrasing it like that, but it's true. Noah might not follow Ronan around like a golden retriever, but he trails behind him in the halls smudgily, like a shadow.

Maybe Adam's wrong about Noah. Maybe Adam's bitter as well, in concentrated, different ways.

"Parrish," Noah says.

"Czerny," Adam returns. 

Noah is then abruptly silent, but it's a billowing, expectant silence which feels like he has something to say. Beats pass, and Adam sighs and says: "We'd better head in," and Noah just says: "Yeah."

On the way in, though, he abruptly adds: "I don't know what you did, Adam, but it fucked him up," and Adam's just about to turn to him, tell him something about how it's none of his business, but Noah holds his hands up, palms out, and continues: "So if he's very shit today - much like he's been all weekend - just try to understand that he never really recovered." 

Adam can't really say anything to that. "He's shit everyday," he murmurs, a kind of defeat, and Noah concedes that point in a little laugh, and they enter the living room.

 

Blue's blown out the candles on her cake, a magnificent affair co-baked by Maura and Orla, and now she's opening her presents, and by this time Adam has realized Matthew Lynch is very angry with him.

Matthew'd always been a cheerful bouncing child, always been satisfied with Aurora's company, went straight from that to having his own friends, and hadn't needed to tag along with Adam and Ronan anywhere. He was in awe of Declan and adored Ronan and so had been affectionate with Adam by extension. Adam's not used to seeing his face furrowed in a glare, especially not turned on him. He's not used to Matthew moving to the other sofa to avoid him. 

Ronan's distracted by Blue, an easy sort of bickering about Gansey's present - tickets, and who'd chosen them, and who'd drive to see the band. Gansey says, "Okay, alright, who's next?" and it turns out to be Adam's. He'd gotten her a neck pillow. For plane rides, he'd written, and Blue turns to him and smiles, understanding.

He can sense Ronan, beside her, looking right at him as well. It's laser-sharp and it's searing heat and it's unavoidable. Adam avoids it.

"Party games," Orla announces, and Blue groans, very quietly - Adam only hears it because he knows it's coming - but in good humour. "Twister!"

Adam should have seen this coming.

"Groups of four," Calla decides. "Birthday girl, Coca-Cola shirt, snake, President." Adam takes a moment to reflect on how easily she'd passed over Noah, sitting on the sofa in plain sight, sipping a drink; maybe it isn't just him who sees him as more of a memory of a person than an actual one. He takes a few moments more than necessary to think about this rather than focus on the immediate future, which involves proximity and warmth and much twisting of limbs. For fuck's sake, as Ronan would say.

The Ronan in question is rising from the sofa, and nobody needs to learn any kind of Ronan-speech to read the glittering challenge in his eyes. He stalks over to the mat Orla's laying out, not breaking eye contact with Adam the whole time. Adam can't run now. Adam feels shivery all over. Warm and shivery and horribly anticipatory, and a vivid sense memory of the last time Ronan's skin was touching his makes itself quite remembered in the terribly short seconds it takes to walk over to the mat.

Gansey's quietly thrilled. Adam tries not to roll his eyes at this. Blue looks nervously excited as well, though, so it's rather sweet. 

"Right leg green," Orla calls. "President! You start." 

 

Fifteen minutes in, and this is pretty much torture, so pretty much exactly what Adam had expected. The crook of Ronan's arm is draped over his thigh, his shoulder against the side of Adam's stomach. Just a line of contact, really, but Adam has tried for months to forget how Ronan smells, always of the mist and moss of his magical orchard and now of sweat, masculine and making Adam dizzy. Gansey has bowed out. Blue is somewhere in the vicinity of Adam's back. Adam can't tell. Adam's arm is starting to tremble from where it's bracing his body up so they don't all collapse into a huge heap. 

If Ronan had been the one to issue a challenge, Adam's never been one to back down.

"Right hand red, Blue," Maura says, and Adam doesn't know how it happens, but Blue loses her balance so he loses his and they're all falling, and he knows even less about how the next thing happens, but he's got one of Ronan's strong jean-clad legs too-near to his face and when he looks further down the mat, Ronan's face is. It's too near Adam's crotch. Nobody moves for a while. Adam is acutely aware of the rise and fall of Ronan's breathing, the way his eyes dart to - and to Adam, and away.

Then Blue says: "Alright. Then everybody loses. Ronan, get your incredibly heavy leg off me," and the spell is broken.

 

Adam goes to the kitchen, ostensibly to get water and actually to avoid the way Ronan is looking at him. Like he's still allowed to keep looking. Matthew's sitting on a kitchen stool, kicking his legs. He looks up when Adam enters. He must have left during the game. He looks nothing like Ronan or Declan or Niall, a lovely golden-curled carbon copy of Aurora, but his eyes are hard now, very blue-eyed Lynch fury.

"Hi, Matthew," Adam says, evenly. He crosses over to the sink to fill a glass.

Matthew snorts, a sharp sound that's very, very Ronan. "Why are you even here?"

Adam finishes his glass. He turns to face Matthew. "It's Blue's birthday," he says. "I'm Blue's friend."

"You should just stay away from him," Matthew tells him. "You've been nothing but awful to him."

Adam says: "I know."

This seems to incense Matthew. "You know?" he repeats, his voice rising. "That's not much help! Do you know whatever you did was shit, for whatever reasons you did it, and the way you did it was even worse? Do you know you fucked him up, but he still dreams about you? He still says your name in his sleep."

This is what Adam dreams about when he sleeps:

If he comes here again, I'll kill him.

He'd believed him then. What he'd also realized that night: Ronan deserves more than something broken, something that will threaten his life. Ronan is bright and wonderful and gave him Christmas in May; Ronan doesn't need a fearful fractured creature, clawing to get away from the place Ronan loves and will always call home. It is infinitely better this way. This is what he believes now.

Adam hasn't realized he's frozen, blank-eyed, until he hears Ronan's voice, in the kitchen, too close: "Matthew, shut the fuck up. God. Get out. Adam. Adam." Gansey and Blue and Noah might also be there, but it's hard to properly take notice. He's being carefully led out. He lets it happen, even though he's okay, really, he'd just being made to recall some things he'd rather keep tucked away in the daylight.

Adam sits down on the porch, and Ronan sits beside him.

"Matthew's just," Ronan says, and apparently he can't find the end to that sentence, because he repeats: "Matthew just."

"I've never heard him swear before," Adam says.

They haven't been this close for months, knees touching. Close, not like the hyper-charged tension of Twister. Adam had said, Leave me alone, and meant it, and Ronan had. Adam desperately scrabbling to date Blue, anyone else, to reenforce that barrier, hadn't really been necessary.

"Yeah, I'm trying to break him out of it."

"You?" Adam says, startled into a laugh. "Break anyone? Out of the habit of swearing?"

Ronan scowls. "He's too young."

"You hypocrite."

They fall silent. Adam can feel Ronan's eyes on him, and he can feel him glance away. And maybe Matthew's unwound something in him, because he needs to say this: "You got question twelve wrong. Mr Lahey's wrong, marking that adverb correct."

Ronan shifts on the step. "Stalker."

Adam shrugs. "Pot, kettle."

There's silence. Ronan at ten, jumping off the pier, their linked hands, their chests bare. Ronan at thirteen, handing Adam apples sweeter than any Earth-grown. Ronan at sixteen, breath stuttering as Adam closes the distance between them. Ronan at seven, making it snow in Cabeswater for the first time in a century.

He still dreams about you.

"Adam," Ronan says, choked, at the same time Adam turns towards him, and then Adam's phone rings. 

It's a number he's familiar with; a number that has dialed his many times, requesting that he pick up his dad from the station, in another alcoholic stupor.

"Hi, Officer," Adam says. "Where is he this time?"

He realizes something's wrong when he hears Officer Bailey's voice, oddly gentle, saying, "Son-"


	5. part five: ronan + aurora

_January 2015 - Winter_

It's been almost two months since Adam's buried his dad. Two months since that crisp red-gold day, and Ronan had hated the bastard with all his heart but he'd stood there in an equally crisp suit and his tie knotted, straight-backed beside Gansey and Noah and Blue. Adam and his mother stood in front of them as they'd laid the coffin down. Neither of them had been teary-eyed. Robert Parrish hadn't been the sort of man who'd inspired that particular kind of grief.

It's been two months, and Adam had returned to school the Tuesday after the funeral. Ronan had seen the Hondayota in the parking lot in the morning, and his heart had fucking raced with a sort of unidentifiable hope-anxiety combo. And then he hadn't seen Adam all day. But Spanish was the second to last lesson, and Ronan had slid into an empty seat, for once early, and doodled furiously and stressfully on the table. Then Adam had said, from above him: "Stop vandalizing school property, you're too old for detention." He'd sat down next to him. Just like that.

It's been. They don't hang out much. They hang out with Noah and Gansey and Blue in a group, and it's like all the puzzle pieces fit. They talk favors from dead kings and ley lines and Noah's possible afterlife condition - Ronan had called that first, by the way - and they eat at Nino's and Adam's moved to reading in the library to reading at their table during lunch break, but they don't hang out as much as they used to, Ronan and Adam. Sometimes Ronan goes to the garage, waits for Adam to finish, drives him home. Sometimes Adam gives Ronan a summary of his day's Bio lesson when everyone else is asleep and Ronan doesn't really care about the words but Adam's voice is a safety blanket he's missed for too long.

It's slow, but it's working.

Ronan's not going to rush it. It's only almost been two months.

But this morning he wakes up and it's snowing; fresh, crisp magical dreamt-up matter. Cabeswater's winters have always been sludge and mud and this one started out no different, only now there are actual, honest-to-God snowflakes, perfect and symmetrical and drifting down the road outside Ronan's window. 

Last night, Adam had said, quietly: "You'll visit? --will you? With Blue. And the rest."

Ronan runs down the stairs and is almost out the door when Aurora shouts: "Scarf!" He accepts it from her and she shakes her head and he kisses her on the cheek, his beautiful, impossible mother. No harm will be allowed to come to her, not when he's around. And then he's off, as fast as he can in winter boots in thick snow. Towards the pier. Towards Adam.

Adam's already sitting there when he reaches it.

 

This is Aurora's third year without Niall, and her first real winter. It feels like closure, in a way. Like something she would have never thought possible come to life. Mrs Lauren Garcia shivers in her yard, waves at her exuberantly.

"Aurora, dear," she says, "I believe miracles have returned to this blue neighbourhood."

"I believe you're right, Lauren," Aurora agrees, and hands Matthew a likely-looking stick for an arm.

**Author's Note:**

> 1) congratulate me on that title.
> 
> 2) this is for my sister's birthday - october 20th - and i hope she has the sense, if she sees this, not to be a smartass and read it beforehand, thank you very much. the whole thing will be done and finished by said date. fingers crossed.
> 
> 3) mrs gansey is running for mayor! having given up washington after fifteen years in that terrible toxic environment. in case any of you were interested.
> 
> 4) a sequel is in the works just because i finished it in such a hurry i forgot to tie up a few loose ends i was thinking vaguely about. like, adam doesn't want to return to cabeswater how do they deal?, gansey gets blue tickets to a band she doesn't even like how does it end?, is noah even dead?, could i have cleared up all those loose ends in the time it took me to write these end notes?
> 
> 5) upon having finished this. let me reflect. i said i would never write a pynch fic. my sister is one of the few people i would bend that rule for. it's finally finished, fuck, so here you go, child, this has been a proper labour of love, i love you and all that jazz, and happy birthday oh my god this has been exhausting (mostly because i left it so fucking late lbr)
> 
> 6) ~~~the bnnb playlist~~~ consists of #wild, #fools, and #talkmedown. by troye sivan. surprise surprise. gotta give him that promo


End file.
